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Muni Removing Bus Stops on 21 Hayes Line
This Could Be Our Skyline, In a Couple of Decades
Though not a new idea, its sanity level, or lack thereof, remains the same: permanently removing vehicles and Muni lines from Market Street. This is the latest idea tinkering around inside Newsom's sleek head.
SF Examiner reports:
The City is in the midst of a six-month trial that aims at limiting the amount of private automobiles on the major thoroughfare, and the mayor says that if the data backs it up, he favors an expansion of the vehicle ban — and also moving toward removing Muni from the street.
According to Curbed, this means a "ban on all cars ... and remove all the Muni lines, including the F-Market" from Market Street. This would free up San Francisco main thoroughfare for things like small boutiques, art, increased pedestrians, carriage horses, singing children, and other springtime-in-Paris moments.
But Newsom's idea may not be that nutso. All of the car traffic and Muni lines would then shift over to Mission Street. Could Mission Street, in its current condition, handle all of that traffic? No, no it could nice. But still, a car-free Market Street, would sure be pretty. And that's about it.
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I had no problem with the car removal experiment on Market St. because it was just a cluster flop anybody tried to turn right.
However, I have a major problem with trying to move Muni off of Market St. Just shifting the infrastructure of the overhead lines has got to be prohibitively expensive.
And all the money that has been spent on the F-Line, just flushed away?
Ugh, shut Gavin!
Wow, I'm impressed that Newsom's handlers allowed him to make such an absurd statement. Sure, he couldn't care less about Muni riders. Sure he doesn't even know the F-line runs on track. Sure, he doesn't know the Mission is already slow for transit and doesn't have the capacity for more buses. After all, he gets chauffeured around in a giant SUV every day. But to make a statement that ridiculous shows what an utter lack of vision the guy has.
Whatever Newsom is on... can I have some?
I totally agree with slappydafrog. One of the benefits from excluding cars was that Muni had at least a chance of running efficiently for a small part of some routes.
Seriously. It actually seems to be running faster now. Can't have that!
it's an idea worth considering. bus stops on every corner at every light from the castro to the ferry building just don't make sense when you have the lrv and bart right below it all. people need to get out and walk more too. we are the fattest people in the history of the world!
The reason it makes very little sense is because the underground Muni system is not designed well. It runs small trains with many lines all getting pushed into the same track from Church to Embarcadero. The system lacks capacity as it is to deal with peak times (and more importantly is unable to do anything to improve capacity right now), let alone taking out buses and the F line that are perhaps helping to increase that capacity.
Err, not everyone lives in a neighborhood served by BART or light rail. A lot of those buses on Market downtown are just the last few blocks of a line that goes way out to: North Beach, the Marina, Richmond, Western Addition, etc. Should they all change to drop off on McAllister, Hyde, Eddy, Geary, Stockton, etc. and those riders are required to transfer (yay adding 10 unneeded minutes to trip time!) or walk the rest of the way to, say, Front? How about when it's raining? Or you're old?
The "ban" the way it is, is actually fine. Even though there are lots of cars on Market from 7th down, after they stop enforcing the get-off at 11th and 9th.
To suggest no MUNI on Market is beyond inane, it's irresponsible as to how the city works, and gives the totally car-free nutsos a foothold. Maybe Newsom is just wrathing vengence unto the city for hosing his gov bid.
This idea is so spectacularly nutty it made my morning.
All you need to think of is this: what possible benefit will there be for the riders of the 10 or so bus lines (never mind the F!) who will have to walk from Mission to Market, sometimes on less than savory blocks, in the wind and pouring rain, just to transfer to BART??
No fucking way.
I'm all for a car-free Market Street. But getting rid of Muni buses, too??? Is he insane?? Even Amsterdam doesn't do that ...
But knowing Gavin Newsom, this is one of these "out-of-the-box" ideas -- like Free Muni -- he will bring up to generate media attention, and then quietly kill it once the cameras have gone.
Cars off of Market is a great idea, but shifting Muni off of Market is obviously a Gavin pander to some construction cronies or a red herring controversy to get people off his back about any number of other valid criticisms. It's a distraction, and I fear too many will fall for it.
Ban MUNI from Market Street? That may be the stupidest thing Newsom's ever done. He's done many stupid things.
Would it even be a street anymore without MUNI? Sounds like it would be a bike-path made horribly dangerous by tourists unaware of the ban and taxi cabs who dont give a shit
That's a good idea, I'm glad I thought of it.
I thought you said "cat-free" Market St. I support it.
As long as there's Zipcat at your destination for convenient daily and hourly rentals?
Don't remove MUNI from Market! Instead, get rid of auto traffic and offer free MUNI on Market. This could further speed up travel times in this area and encourage more use of the MUNI system.
How's this for outside the box:
Market Street needs an elevated bike freeway. The bike freeway could start above Octavia, have on/off ramps at Civic Center and then again downtown.
Grade separation for bikes, with a 6' wide conduit going each way, would really help speed up life for bikers and reduce accidents.
what if you left the f-line alone and took everything else off market?
Dear Mr. Newsom,
Please sit down and stop making our city an impossible and undesirable place to live. We don't want your new ideas or projects or state-of-the-art green initiatives that our almost bankrupt city can't afford and doesn't need. We are in the middle of a major recession and what we do need is to get back on our feet both personally and as a municipality. That means finishing what we've already started and cleaning up what we already have.
Above all stop using our city as a pawn in your soon-to-be-failed run for Governor. It really isn't doing either of us any good.
If you don't have anything useful to say please say nothing at all.
Thank you.
Thumbs up
Anyone else wondering if the Mayor is drinking again?
Fuck this. Get rid of Muni, cars, and bikes in the ENTIRE CITY and replace it with Unicorns and Magic Carpet Rides, all "free"
http://www.njudahchronicles.com/2009/10/la_la_lalets_all_celebrate_the_latest_tr.html
Fuck yeah, now we're talking!
More unicorns and replace all taxi's with centaurs. You can tell them where you want to go because, you know, they like speak English and you can hop on their back for the ride. The average centaur can get from Geary and Market to 41st and Geary in about 12 minutes with no red lights. Them bitches can move!
And chop down those metal and tar filled bridges and get some trained dolphins and sea lions to ferry people across the bay.
This can work people. Unicorns, not cash. Centaurs, not care! Sea lions, not bridges. Acting locally and shit!
Wait? he wants LESS public transit?
That fucking hair gel is finally eating his brain
You're assuming he had one in the first place.